1. Social Content Will Gain Prominence
In the coming times, content from social media such as Facebook,
Twitter and LinkedIn will gain more importance on the SERPs. Already, 76% marketers use Social Media
to support and boost SEO, cites an article published at Impactbnd.com.
In 2016, marketers will do everything possible to make their Facebook
posts or tweets rank higher on the SERPs.
Isn’t that amazing?! We predict that more social media content will
be indexed on Google and other popular search engines such as Bing and
Yahoo. This will in turn blur the lines between ‘web’ and ‘social media’
in terms of SEO strategies. So, be prepared to find, collect and use
your valuable social content for optimizing your page for maximum
visibility. For brand names, social media profiles are amongst the top
results in search listings. For instance, if you search “Designhill” on
Google, the company’s Facebook page, Twitter profile and the LinkedIn
page appear as the top listings. See for yourself!
2. Videos Will Still Rule
We all know that videos are a great way of keeping audience engaged
and entertained. But do you know that by using enough videos, you can
improve the ranking of your page on the SERPs. A report by Marketing
Land states that videos make for 62% of all Google searches
universally. Moreover, Google has started giving attention to blended
results/searches. So, why not grab this opportunity to appear on the
first page of search results by including an engaging video in your
content? According to Quicksprout.com, videos get 50 times better organic page ranks in Google as against plain, static text results. Also, video searches garner 41% higher click-through rate as compared to plain, static text content, according to Relesoo.com.
Many marketers chose to drive their modern marketing engine with the
fuel of Video SEO in 2015. And we predict that more marketers and
businesses will embrace the trend of videos in the coming year too.
3. Mobile Optimization Will Become Crucial
Is your business website mobile-friendly? Your audience is no longer
in one place. People use all sorts of devices such as tablets,
smartphones, laptops, phone watches to browse web. Keeping this in mind,
plenty of brands went mobile-friendly in 2015. And we anticipate that
more brands will take up this trend in the upcoming year. Mobile
optimization will become the norm, rather than exception. So, it’s high
time you changed the way you conceptualize and create SEO strategies for
mobile searches.
Neilpatel.com states that the total number of searches on mobile devices has seen a 43% increase year-over-year. Also, Google’s algorithm update this year ensured that mobile-friendly websites
get a search ranking boost on mobile searches. As more and more people
use mobile to surf the Internet, Google decided to make it easier to
find relevant, mobile-optimized websites. So, it now uses
mobile-friendliness as a factor in ranking search results. If you’re
still not convinced, here are just 5 stats that will make you go
mobile-friendly in 2016.
- 4 out of 5 consumers use smartphones to shop. (Source: Convinceandconvert.com)
- 70% of mobile searches lead to online action within an hour. (Source: Socialmediatoday.com)
- Over 1.2 billion people access the web from their mobile devices. (Source: Mobify.com)
- Global mobile traffic now accounts for 15% of all Internet traffic. (Source: Newtarget.com)
- 95% smartphone users have searched for local info. (Source: Adwords.blogspot.com )
Therefore, make sure that mobile optimization finds a prominent place
in your SEO strategies for the upcoming year to stay ahead of your
competitors. Make sure that everything on your site, from colors to
fonts and from content to logo design, is mobile optimized.
4. Voice Search Function a Must
These days, people who are on the go use voice search simply because
it is more convenient and safer, especially when someone is driving or
multi-tasking. It is becoming a huge part of mobile usage as it has
taken away the pain of typing keywords to run a search query. Almost all
mobile devices have a voice search functions. The popularity of voice
searches has been spurred by Microsoft, Google, and Apple launching
their own versions of advanced voice-responsive assistants – Cortana,
Google Now and Siri.
Even ‘Domino’s Pizza’ has a ‘voice-ordering feature. However, make
sure that your content is easily searchable through voice searches by
using long-tail keywords, which are more likely to be spoken than
conventional keywords. Google Study finds voice search mostly used to ask for directions. For teens, doing a voice search while watching TV
(59%) and while with friends (57%) are the highest use cases, according
to marketingland.com. Whereas for adults, voice searching is done the
most while watching TV (36%), followed by when with friends (24%) and
while cooking (23%).
5. Content Aggregation will get Bigger & Better
According to Digitalcurrent.com, Knowledge Graph, wiki, local, maps, social media, news, images and videos make for 85% of Google search results.
These stats indicates that now people look for sources that provide all
relevant information for a particular subject or topic that at one
place.
A blog published at imediaconnection.com explains that content aggregation is a practical
way of finding, collating, amassing, consolidating, presenting,
sharing, and displaying content around pre-specified set of criteria to
appeal target audience. If you too are planning to do so, make sure that
you collect and curate content from different, high-authority sources
and display it at one place for your users to see to build your
authority.
A great example of content curation is using the humble newsletter, Next Draft by Dave Pell, who has amassed over 160,000 subscribers
to his daily email which shares the most interesting stories in
business, culture, and tech, an article in Jeff Bullas explained.
Another example is Inbound.org which was built by Moz and Hubspot to increase their reach even further.
6. The Craze of Mobile Apps Will Grow
According to Tech Crunch, mobile apps account for 52% of all time spent on online digital media. Another report available on the Internet reveals that users spend 89% mobile time using apps. This is the reason for more and more businesses planning to explore the advantage of mobile apps.
As discussed above, use of mobile for web search is on an all-time
rise and apps just make the work easier. Just few more years and mobile
apps are sure to overpower desktop and mobile websites. An article in
searchenginejournal.com states that 85% of people prefer native mobile apps to websites.
Feature your brand prominently in the app name and make sure you have
proper links to apps for better search rankings Also, you must ensure
that app optimization tops your list of SEO optimization. There are
several brands that are benefiting from prominent mobile app visibility
in Google’s organic search results. Have a look at what happens when you
search eBay in Google. The app page URL presents a powerful opportunity
to “occupy” the first page of Google SERPs.
7. Local SEO to Become Even More Important
This trend is only going stronger over the years. According to Entrepreneur.com, local SEO is likely to gain solid grounds in the coming days.
As a marketer, you have to let Google know where you are located and
what you are offering so that your chances of showing up on pages,
especially in front of the relevant audience, increase. It is must to
have your local pages which will include the name of your business,
address etc. with Google, Yahoo and Bing.
Since Google came out with its “Pigeon” update, local SEO has gained
significant prominence forcing businesses and marketers to focus on a
local tangent. So, ensure of having location specific keywords and
personalize content basis your target audiences’ location to stay ahead
in the game in 2016. Check out some stats to know the benefits of
ranking in local search results.
- Local searches lead 50% of mobile visitors to visit stores within a day. (Source: Searchengineland.com)
- More than 60% consumers have used local information in ads. (Source: Business2community.com)
- 50% mobile searches are conducted in hopes of finding local results. (Source: Business2community.com)
Your listing in the local pages can increase consumer engagement with
your business and your ranking.
The better SEO strategies you have, the more benefits you will have.
